My advice to students who enquire as to a career in professional diving is simply

 If you at present have a stable job (any job), have a family (especially if you have children) or are over the age of 30 then

At present there is a great deal of debate going on as to diver training (see www.longstreath.com) - most of it valid. One of the recurring themes at present is the poor standards of training at certain schools. In fact our school came into existence due to my personal shock at diver training standards when I wished to have several divers trained for my aquaculture business. When I saw that I had more diving gear in my garage then the particular school in question, I set up my own school with the sole intention of training my own divers and then shutting it down. Unfortunately, the school now seems to have a life of its own!

Now, having trained several hundred divers and, in the scope of my career as a commercial diver (21 years in all areas of diving) having worked closely with several hundred more, I am forced to admit that no school, no matter how good or how long the course is, can produce a GOOD professional commercial diver. What makes a good diver is something that no school, no matter how good, can add to the equation.

Any school can be sure of only one thing, namely that the vast majority of their graduates will never become professional divers. At our own school we may train 150 divers a year but it is my personal belief that less than 20% of those that we train have the right mental and physical combination to succeed. Of these less than half will be obsessed enough with diving to endure the hardships of unemployment, poor pay, long periods of time away from home (or no home) and the often monotonous and dangerous work. So in fact we train only 15 divers annually who, after five years of experience and a couple of thousand hours diving time, might be able to call themselves commercial divers.

Skills are secondary - without the right attitude a diver will never succeed.

 There is saying, “hire for attitude and teach skills”. I have regularly seen highly qualified divers who have dozens of qualifications, know everything there is to know about diving yet they are never able to get work, and when they do get work, they are never asked to come back. On the other hand I know many divers (some of them my friends) whose technical skills are limited and yet they are always working.

When prospective employers phone me up to enquire as to hiring an individual they do not ask me if the graduate can dive (of course he can dive, any moron with the right training can learn to dive, in fact we graduate dozens of them each year). What the employee wants to know is what type of person the individual is. The diving world is a very small one and, unfortunately, it is a world of the team player and not the individual. One individual with the wrong attitude can destroy the efficiency of the complete team and this in turn can lead to accidents happening. Typical behaviour that would indicate to me that the student does not have the right attitude both at the school and on the job would be:

So from the above we know what a shitty attitude is but what is a good attitude? Well to be honest I do not really know but it would appear to be a combination of things such as a positive approach to life (she may be ugly but at least I am getting laid) a sense of humour, an ability to operate under stressful conditions, an ability to concentrate on the job in hand despite personal problems (your wife or girlfriend is always going to leave you in the middle of a job) and a strong work ethic. Unfortunately, this combination is not often found in the same package.

 You might have the best attitude in the world but if you are work-shy it is worth nothing.

 Another factor that contributes to the attrition rate of divers is the fact that many students have the wrong impression of what commercial diving work involves. The media and many movies have portrayed the life of a commercial diver as a glamorous, well paid profession whose existence keeps the whole oil industry running. I would hate to disillusion you but commercial diving is a hard shitty business and commercial divers are the equivalent of underwater labourers. The only difference is that topside labour works under better conditions and gets better pay. Even in the offshore industry the pay is not great compared to a bricklayer in the U.K.

If you want to know what working as a diver is like put a brown paper bag over your head, cut a hole for your mouth and eyes and go and work in a meat freezer room moving around heavy pieces of meat with the temperature down and the light nearly off. To make it really realistic agree to work a 12 hour day for the normal 8 hour pay rate.

 Let me repeat it DIVING IS A HARD JOB, IT DOES NOT INVOLVE A QUICK BUCK AND IT DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO COME INTO CONTACT WITH WOMEN. Those few women in the diving trade do not have night jobs as models (except Bridget of course), and even if they did, they would not be going out with a penniless commercial diver. Don’t despair - there are a few women out there who, after a few beers, will look mildly attractive and for a small payment they will love you long time baby.

So having now scared of the bulk of you we are left those few who are under 30, have no family, no job, probably very little sense, believe that they have the right attitude and, most important, have some access to money (borrowed or stolen because if you had the ability to earn enough money to go to diving school you would have the sense not to waste it in becoming unemployed).

 Now you have to choose a diving school. Again, from my experience the bulk of our students would be very happy if we just gave them a ticket without all the hassle of having to study, get fit and work hard days in the sun. We joke that if we sold all the diving equipment, did away with PT, hired a few hookers as “instructors”, invested it in a better bar and a few more pool tables, we would attract many more diving students.

Unfortunately, our school believes in extensive PT (if you cannot swim for an hour how do you expect to scrape hulls or roll rocks for a three-hour shift twice a day). Diving is hard physical work. We also believe in extensive theory. You will write 10 papers of 2 hour duration during the class 3 course and a further 6 papers on the class 2 course.

The whole course will also involve extensive diving and tools training under strict discipline. All dives deeper than 10m are from a boat (a dirty little boat that often breaks down, smokes badly and rolls continually (our record is twelve students vomiting at the same time). Despite all of the above we will still graduate a large number of students who will go into the business with an attitude that will guarantee them permanent unemployment. Our only consolation will be that they are technically well trained.

So looking at the above you chose another school with no PT, very few exams, short hours, close to civilisation with instructors who are nice to you. So you have to pay a bit more for the school, but what the hell, you get to party every night. 0n your first job when your Supervisor from hell wants to beat you over the head with an oar because you could only do 90 minutes of a three-hour shift you can always resign. You never really wanted to be a diver anyway and dad will pay for you to set up your Video Store. (Lots of women). For the next 30 years you can tell your customers tales of your commercial diving days when you attacked sharks with your green river knife and sucked them up with your gravel pump.

But maybe, just maybe, you really want to be a diver. You love the sea, you love sitting in the sun holding an umbilical, you love sleeping in containers or dinky boats with guys (just don’t love them too much), you don’t mind being unemployed, you prefer hookers and short term relationships to stable ones, you don’t mind working hard under adverse conditions, you like reading technical books on diving and you enjoy blue movies. Well what do you do now, fresh from diving school with your new diploma?

Unless you have contacts or family in the business you can be sure of one thing. You will be unemployed. By all means put together your CV and send it to the numerous local diving companies (SUBTECH, CAPE DIVING, ATLATECH, PROPSHINE, BREAKWATER DIVING, SMIT). If you are lucky or, more important, have a background such as having been in the Navy or having some qualification such as fitter or diesel mechanic, then you might get a job offer at a civils company. It has been known to happen. Two of our recent graduates got work on their first day scraping a semi submersible by hand.

Their first reaction when shown the platform was “you must be f—joking”. The bottom line is that they accepted the job, did the work (it took weeks) and now have permanent jobs with that company. That is probably not where they want to be in the long term but at least they are logging dives, working and coming into daily contact with guys working in the offshore industry. If nothing else they certainly know what spud cans look like. What they showed was the right attitude. An attitude that was very apparent even on their course.

The wrong attitude would have been “I was a lieutenant in the Navy, I have a class 2 ticket, I am not going to scrape a rig with a spade for 6 weeks” or “we need brush carts or high pressure cleaners”. Whine whine, whine!

But statistically the chances are that you will not get a job at one of the local companies. For example a class 3 diver out of school will find his CV placed in a pile of 800, but if he has some experience he will be placed in the pile of 200 from which the company will actually draw its offshore teams (real statistics). Where your chances of getting a job are better, is in the diamond diving Industry. This is a uniquely African diving career opportunity, which provides divers with work in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Zaire. I estimate that at present there are in the region of 600 divers working at any one time in the diamond diving industry in Southern Africa.

 A starting point would be to get all your kit together and drive or hitch to Port Nolloth. Be sure to take your ID document for police clearance (POLICE RECORD - NO WORK), your Diving Ticket and your in date Medical Certificate.

Once in Port Nolloth (budget to stay at least a month) speak to the Mining Companies such as Trans Hex or Alexcor. The local bar will also be a source of work information. The best time of year for work opportunities is from October to March.

Salaries vary from 0 to R100 000 monthly. The normal deal is to get a small basic salary which keeps you alive (R1 500 to R5 000) and then a percentage of the value of the diamonds recovered (5 –20%). Again what you are paid will depend on how good a diver you are and how much experience you have. Lead Divers and boat owners who have been in the game for 10 years and have good prospecting skills have been known to earn R 1 000 000 a year. (most divers earn very little but are kept alive by the dream of hitting a jackpot). What is interesting is that, although luck does play a role, it is usually the same teams that continue to produce year after year (hard work, experience, long hours and the right attitude).

Because of the harsh conditions and low pay the burn out rate of divers is very high which means that there is almost a continuous demand for young divers especially in the summer months. Also bear in mind that the employer who is looking for divers is normally the guy who is either not doing very well or does not treat his divers well. In the real world very few divers leave a site where they are being well paid and well treated. When these gaps do come up the employer has the pick of the crop.

 As I have said, any work is better than no work. Working for a bad company also has the advantages that you will gain extensive experience in repairing equipment and “making a plan”. What five years on the West Coast will do will be to harden you physically. You will become used to cold water, long hours and gain valuable seamanship and mechanical skills. If your equipment breaks on the west coast you fix it yourself. I have always said that to be a good diver on the west coast you need to be 50% a mechanic, 30% a sailor and 20% a diver. There is nothing that you cannot repair given a four-pound hammer, a crowbar, some wire and a shifter.

 The actual work, while very tough physically (both underwater and topside where you have to handle gravel bags), is quite safe with the majority of diving occurring at depths of less than 10m. In my twelve years on the coast there have only been 5 deaths. The biggest danger on the West Coast is that many divers fall prey to drugs and alcohol where periods of hectic 18-hour working days are followed by weeks of inactivity while waiting for the sea to come down. The HIV prevalence in Port Nolloth and many African States is also very high. If you must sleep with the locals, keep your wet suit on!

Diamond divers also operate out of Alexander Bay, Lamberts Bay, Doring Bay and Luderitz in Namibia (you will need a work permit in Namibia). Luderitz is a city compared to Port Nolloth but you have to be able to endure serious wind and the sea conditions are often very harsh.

 If you end up on the west coast you should see it as an apprenticeship. Use your time to gain valuable skills such as learning how to repair diesel engines. Buy books on technical subjects and when you do make some money invest it in doing further courses such as Class 2, Diver Medic, Diving Supervisor, Non Destructive Testing, Underwater Photography and Underwater or surface welding. After a few years you will have a CV that might make it into the top pile of 200.

MY PEARLS OF WISDOM FOR SWINE

 Do not contemplate becoming a diver:

If you must become a diver bear the following in mind:

If you keep at it, have the right attitude and do not despair in your early days (first ten years – and I am not joking) you can make a good living out of being a Commercial Diver.
At present most of the diving jobs in West Africa and even the China Seas are being taken by South Africans, much to the annoyance of the Brits and Yanks. We are hungry and are fast getting a reputation of having a “CAN DO ATTITUDE”. Many of my friends in their early forties are working consistently offshore at good rates but it has taken some of them 15 years to get there.

After ten years of diamond diving any offshore diving conditions will be a dip in the pond.